Muscle Sorness After Workouts

Ive noticed that my muscles are not sore a couple of days later after my workouts like they used to be. I train everyday
for a little over an hour and always do 4 sets per exercise.
Ive tried to increase weight but then I dont have good form
and am worried that I am not benifiting from my workouts if
my muscles are not sore

Muscle soreness is not really the best judge of how well you are working out. There are a lot of studies on hypertrophy and etc. that basically say a good pump is enough to consistently grow, as long as your diet/rest is in check.

Personally, I never break the 15-18 set range for large body parts and the 9-12 set range for secondary body parts--I hardly ever get sore anymore, unless I'm cutting...

It sounds like you need some variety in this program. You ALWAYS do 4 sets per exercise. Why don't you throw in a dropset as set number 5 sometime. Lower the poundage and crank out reps until you can't do another one. You want to get sore? Try doing 10 sets of 10 sometime. Pick an exercise and use a lighter poundage than usual, rest one minute between each set, and complete 10 sets of 10 reps. When I do 10 sets of 10 on the close grip bench press, my triceps stay sore for several days. I personally don't stay on that 10x10 program for any substantial amount of time though. It gives me good pumps but I lose top-end strength when I don't lift heavy weights with low reps. Anyway, just some ideas here. Don't get locked into any one program for too long. Make adjustments as necessary.

Thanks for the suggestions guys,
Im going to try something new and see if that works
Ive spent most of the last year losing 100 pounds so
I want to spend 2008 putting on some muscle. Ive got
so much respect for you guys that bust your ass in the gym
and get results. I thought losing fat was hard but putting on
quality muscle is harder for sure. Thanks for the advice

12-27-2007, 10:18 AM

tattoopierced1

try switching things up. I usually do this every 6-8 weeks. This does 2 things, keeps my muscles guessing and hits different fibers often, and 2, keeps me interested. I am the type of person that if I do the same thing over and over again, I get in a rut and dont push myself as hard as I once did. Changing things up keeps things interesting.

you could also try adding more weight or do a few more more reps. But the cause of lactic acid building up in your muscles is fermantation. When you workout and your body needs to unlock the energy in the glucose molecules of your food it does it in two ways. Aerobic respiration and Anerobic respiration. The primary method is Aerobic respiration because its more efficient. But when you cant get enough oxygen your body resorts to lactic acid fermantation and produces lactic acid in your muscles. So soreness ini your muscles is not really a measure of how your doing. But instead the amount of oxygen your taking in when your doing your workouts.

This is true, but increased production of lactic acid has been shown to lead to increased release of growth hormone, which is desirable for anyone who want to gain muscle while improving body composition. Therefore, if soreness means there is increased lactic acid and increased lactic acid means more growth hormone, then perhaps soreness could be a measure of the effectiveness of the workout.

Thats a good point. But at the same time I am willing to bet that certain people have different ratios of growth hormone to lactic acid production and thus soreness cannot be used as a definitive measure of effectiveness but rather a very loose guideline as to the amount of growth hormone production